The present invention relates generally to an apparatus for the uninterrupted feeding of sheet-like products to a discharge location.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,589,428 discloses a device for collating sheet-like products by means of a collating conveyor. The collating conveyor includes controllable grippers arranged on a chain which is driven in circulation. Arranged one behind the other beneath the collating conveyor are a plurality of apparatuses for the uninterrupted feeding of the products to the discharge locations. At the discharge locations the uppermost product of a stack-like supply is raised by a suction element and fed to a gripper. In order to receive the supply, each apparatus includes a stack shaft which is inclined forwards, with respect to the vertical, in the conveying direction of the collating conveyor. The shaft includes a front stack wall provided with a supporting strip against which the products butt by means of one of their edges. Additionally, the stack-like supply bears on a raisable and lowerable shaft base. The shaft base is controlled such that the uppermost product of the supply is located respectively at the discharge location. In order to ensure uninterrupted feeding of the products, each stack shaft is assigned a second shaft base which, alternately with the first-mentioned shaft base, raises the supply stack to the discharge location and receives a replacement stack and raises the latter from beneath up to the supply stack. As a result, the shaft base bearing the supply stack can be moved out of the stack shaft in order to receive a new replacement stack. The construction and control means of this apparatus is high in outlay since two shaft bases have to be individually driven and controlled. Furthermore, the accessibility to the stack shaft is restricted. This constitutes a certain obstruction when introducing a replacement stack.
Therefore it is an object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for the uninterrupted feeding of sheet-like products to a discharge location.